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Colombiaʼs agriculture, forestry and other land use sector accounts for nearly half of its total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The importance of smallholder deforestation is comparatively high in relation to its regional counterparts, and livestock agriculture represents the largest driver of primary forest depletion. Silvopastoral systems (SPSs) are presented as agroecological solutions that synergistically enhance livestock productivity, improve local farmers' livelihoods and hold the potential to reduce pressure on forest conversion. The department of Caquetá represents Colombia's most important deforestation hotspot. Targeting smallholder livestock farms through survey data, in this work we investigate the GHG mitigation potential of implementing SPSs for smallholder farms in this region. Specifically, we assess whether the carbon sequestration taking place in the soil and biomass of SPSs is sufficient to offset the per-hectare increase in livestock GHG emissions resulting from higher stocking rates. To address these questions we use data on livestock population characteristics and historic land cover changes reported from a survey covering 158 farms and model the carbon sequestration occurring in three different scenarios of progressively-increased SPS complexity using the CO 2 fix model. We find that, even with moderate tree planting densities, the implementation of SPSs can reduce GHG emissions by 2.6 Mg CO 2e ha −1 yr −1 in relation to current practices, while increasing agriculture productivity and contributing to the restoration of severely degraded landscapes.
There is a growing recognition that a transition to a sustainable low-carbon society is urgently needed. This transition takes place at multiple and complementary scales, including bottom-up approaches such as community-based initiatives (CBIs). However, empirical research on CBIs has focused until now on anecdotal evidence and little work has been done to quantitatively assess their impact in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this paper, we analyze 38 European initiatives across the food, energy, transport and waste sectors to address the following questions: How can the GHG reduction potential of CBIs be quantified and analyzed in a systematic manner across different sectors? What is the GHG mitigation potential of CBIs and how does the reduction potential differ across domains? Through the comparison of the emission intensity arising from the goods and services the CBIs provide in relation to a business as usual scenario, we present the potential they have across different activities. This constitutes the foundational step to upscaling and further understanding their potential contribution to achieving climate change mitigation targets. Our findings indicate that energy generation through renewable sources, changes in personal transportation and dietary change present by far the highest GHG mitigation activities analyzed, since they reduce the carbon footprint of CBI beneficiaries by 24%, 11% and 7%, respectively. In contrast, the potential for some activities, such as locally grown organic food, is limited. The service provided by these initiatives only reduces the carbon footprint by 0.1%. Overall, although the proliferation of CBIs is very desirable from a climate change mitigation perspective it is necessary to stress that bottom-up initiatives present other impor-
Globally, deforestation produces anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contributing substantially to climate change. Forest cover changes also have large impacts on ecosystem services. Deforestation is the dominant type of land cover change in tropical regions, and this land cover change relates to distinct causes recognized as direct deforestation drivers. Understanding these drivers requires a significant effort. Further, GHG emissions due to deforestation are quantified only in terms of biomass removal, while linking emissions from soil organic carbon (SOC) loss to deforestation is lacking. A closer picture of associated ecosystem service changes due to deforestation is also needed. We analyze for 2001–2010: (1) the magnitudes of deforestation drivers, (2) the related carbon loss, and (3) the ecosystem service value change. On the global scale, agriculture (90.3%) is the primary deforestation driver, where grassland expansion contributed the most (37.5%). The deforestation drivers differ in magnitude and spatial distribution on the continental scale. The total carbon loss by biomass removal and SOC loss accounted for 8797 Mt C and 1185 Mt C, respectively. Furthermore, tropical deforestation caused the ESV loss of 408 billion Int.$ year$$^{-1}$$
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, while the resulting land cover has the ESV of 345 billion Int.$ year$$^{-1}$$
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. Our findings highlight that agriculture substantially contributes to global carbon loss and ecosystem service loss due to deforestation. The deforestation drivers differ in magnitude and distribution for different continents. Further, we highlight the danger of putting a monetary value on nature.
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